


(it's not) too late

by TechnicalTragedy



Series: (i won't) take the easy road [2]
Category: Borderlands
Genre: AI Jack, Atlas CEO Rhys, Choking, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 14:52:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5590399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TechnicalTragedy/pseuds/TechnicalTragedy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhys holds onto the implant. Even after all this time, he can never seem to let go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(it's not) too late

**Author's Note:**

> just go with it okay
> 
> title kinda-sorta from "Kiss the Sky" by Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra (which you might recognize as being the intro song of tftbl episode 2)

* * *

Rhys stares down at it, curled in his fleshy palm looking innocent, like it didn't almost lead to his untimely death. The ECHOeye still glows, just enough to make Rhys worry sometimes.

 

(In his darker moments, Rhys wonders if Jack finding a way out would be so bad. He remembers Jack on his knees begging to stay, Jack asking if they could find his daughter, Jack's pained voice as he admitted that everyone he cares for ends up betraying him. Rhys also remembers his own hand around his throat, the sickening tear of his arm disconnecting from his body, and thinks, yes, Jack finding a way out would be worse than bad.)

 

Rhys closes his hand around the implant, feels it pressing into his skin. He could crush it easily, he knows, and be done with it. He never has. It would feel too much like another death on his hands, he thinks. Let it be known that Rhys wasn't quite the murderous, brutal leader he liked to pretend to be. Maybe, by now, he should know better. He entered a Vault and lived to tell the tale, he was the President of Hyperion in its final hour, he's in the process of building Atlas back up from the ground.

 

He has money, fame, droves of admirers, a gold plaque with his name on it. Rhys still has Vaughn and Yvette, despite everything, and Fiona and Sasha don't hate him, either. He has everything he's ever wanted, everything he's spent his entire life working to gain. What more could he possibly need?

 

(His mind is too quiet. Sometimes his temple aches, sometimes he swears he can't see from his left eye, sometimes his fingers go to his own throat and tighten before he realizes what he's doing. Sometimes he doesn't move them away.)

 

Rhys looks in the mirror and sees himself in Jack's image. It used to be intentional, carving himself up like marble, forever a memorial to the great, awe-inspiring hero Handsome Jack. He used to be a weapon, sharp edges and a fiery tongue. He took a perverse pleasure in each kill, delighting in the spray of gore and feel of tacky blood on his skin. Now, though...

 

He let Jack moonshot Prosperity Junction and his stomach turned. The sky fell, and Helios came down with it, bringing hundreds, if not thousands, of people to their deaths. Even as the owner of Atlas, Rhys has had to make violent decisions. He washes his hands as often as possible, scrubbing at them until they're raw and red and bleeding, but still feels unclean. The flashes of blue at the edge of his sight, the molten thrill of a trigger under his finger, his perfectly coiffed hair and mismatched eyes; everything about who Rhys is reminds him of everything he's trying so hard not to become.

 

(His own pulse flutters under his thumb and Rhys presses down just hard enough for it to hurt. He swallows and feels it judder under his palm. If Rhys closes his eyes it's almost-)

 

Rhys holds onto the implant. Even after all this time, he can never seem to let go.

 

“How's Mr. Bigshot Atlas Man?” a familiar voice calls out.

 

Rhys lifts his head, feeling like it's too heavy on his neck. He blinks drowsily, trying to make his eyes focus on whoever is talking to him. “Vaughn?” he says, or, thinks he says. Rhys isn't exactly in possession of all his faculties at the moment.

 

“Whoa, bro,” Vaughn says, and a warm weight lands on Rhys' shoulder, steadying and comforting all in one. “What's up with you? You look like you haven't slept in weeks.”

 

“Forty-seven hours,” Rhys mumbles, laying his head down on his desk. He's too tired to question why or how Vaughn is in his office right now.

 

Vaughn sighs, almost sounding disappointed, before suddenly Rhys finds himself being lifted up in strong arms. “C'mon, buddy, let's get you into bed. Atlas-ing will have to wait until later.”

 

“Can't sleep,” Rhys says in protest, wiggling a little in Vaughn's grip. He can't go back to sleep. There's something there he doesn't want to see. He doesn't remember exactly what, but he knows that when he sleeps it's there. “Don't make me, please,” he says.

 

Vaughn huffs at him, and then he's laying Rhys down gently onto something so deliciously soft. “It's okay, bro. Nothing will go wrong, I promise.”

 

Rhys doesn't quite believe Vaughn, but can't resist the pull of sleep, and lets it drag him under.

 

Fondly, Vaughn brushes two pieces of hair off of his best friend's forehead before leaving the room.

 

The ECHOeye implant in Rhys' hand sparks, winking in the darkness.

 

_01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01110011 01101001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110_

 

Rhys traces his features in the mirror above his bathroom sink. He looks skinnier, paler, the dark circles under his eyes standing out like bruises. His mechanical arm sits in its charging station in his bedroom and Rhys looks more vulnerable without it, more like a broken toy than the CEO and President of a big-getting-bigger company. Looking away from himself, Rhys steps into the shower, hoping to wake himself up so he'll be ready to face the day ahead of him. He lets his thoughts wander as he scrubs himself down.

 

He had trusted Jack. He really had, and maybe that made him a fool. He'd thought that, under all that rage and bloodthirst and psychosis, there'd had to be someone he could believe in. Rhys had been right, in the end. He could always believe that Jack doesn't truly care about anything other than himself.

 

(Rhys had thought he was an exception, had so desperately _wanted_ to be an exception. He wasn't an idiot, but sometimes he let himself get so blinded by the light that he forgot to look away.)

 

Rhys remembers bruised knees in a bathroom stall, being kissed by someone who almost meant it, warmth in his chest, under his hands, in eyes usually so cold. He doesn't remember the tears so much, but maybe that's for the best. He knows that people care in their own way, knows rough and wild and burning and that sometimes caring just isn't enough.

 

Rhys knows what's it's like to care and be cared for. Vaughn gives the best hugs, Yvette offers him a fry with a sly smile, Fiona's lips curl up despite her not wanting them to, Sasha winks as she pulls at Vaughn's hand. Rhys, vaguely, remembers his mother: her warmth, the creases at the corners of her eyes, her soft hands. He knows kind and gentle and sweet and that if you try hard enough, you might pull through.

 

(Rhys knows cold, too, knows the sparking, freezing trail over his shoulders, in his hands, through his neck. He knows pain and fear and a feeling so overpowering you'd say yes to anything that was asked of you. When Jack showed him the endoskeleton, there'd been a yes in the back of his mind.)

 

He remembers, he remembers, he remembers. Maybe that's his problem. What if he remembers so much that he doesn't remember how to forget? Rhys remembers to condition his hair before he hops out of the shower. What he doesn't do is look at himself in the mirror before he leaves. If he had done so, well...

 

He would've noticed that one eye was green, and the other was blue.

 

_01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01110011 01101001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110_

 

Rhys lashed out with his metal hand, smiling a little when the bandit went down hard, cursing. He reached into his suit jacket, yanking his favorite revolver from its special pocket. He adjusted his grip, readying himself to bring it down on the bandit's head and knock him out.

 

C'MON RHYSIE, SHOOT HIM. PUT HIM OUT OF HIS MISERY.

 

YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.

 

Rhys startled at the voice, looking around wildly for the source. “Who said that?”

 

DONTCHA RECOGNIZE ME, PAL?

 

IT'S YOUR BEST BUDDY, JACK!

 

“No. It can't be Jack. I got rid of Jack,” Rhys says, and the bandit is getting to his feet again. Quickly, Rhys hits him with the butt of his gun. He hurries away, to his office, trying to outrun whatever sick prank had been waiting for him back there.

 

NOT A PRANK. I'M BACK, BABY!

 

Rhys shakes his head, moving a little faster. “Jack is _dead._ Um, again. He's really dead. Really, really dead.”

 

I SHOULD THANK YOU, KIDDO. YOU'RE THE REASON I'M EVEN HERE!

 

“I'm going crazy,” Rhys realizes out loud. “I'm actually going insane.”

 

IF I HAD TO BE LOCKED UP IN YOUR HEAD I'D GO CRAZY TOO.

 

BUT, UNFORTUNATELY, YOU AREN'T GOING INSANE. NO, IT'S THAT ECHOEYE.

 

GOOD JOB KEEPING IT SAFE, BY THE WAY.

 

Rhys pushes into the lobby and smiles tightly at the receptionist, hurrying over to the elevator and smashing the button for the top floor. He should've never left his office this morning. He leans against the wall, closing his eyes. “What do you mean, the ECHOeye? It isn't connected to anything, it's powerless.”

 

RHYSIE, DON'T PLAY DUMB. IT DOESN'T SUIT YOU.

 

YOU KNOW AS WELL AS I DO THAT ALL ECHOEYES NEED IS ACCESS TO THE ECHONET.

 

AND GUESS WHAT? I GOT ACCESS.

 

“This is fucking crazy,” Rhys says, stumbling out of the elevator as it opens into his office. He freezes in his tracks once he looks up.

 

Handsome Jack sits behind his desk, a devilish grin on his masked face. “Glad you could join me, kitten,” he says. This in and of itself would be enough to scare Rhys shitless, but the part that makes Rhys feel like turning tail and getting the hell off of Pandora, maybe into an entirely different system?

 

Jack isn't a hologram.

 

_01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01110011 01101001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110_

 

In another life, maybe, where Handsome Jack had just been Jack, where Rhys hadn't walked around with an AI of his idol in his head, where Hyperion never was, where Pandora was just a name in a myth, maybe in that life Jack and Rhys could've been something.

 

That isn't possible in this life. In this life, Jack beckons and Rhys is unable to do anything except for whatever Jack wants. Jack points at the floor next to his chair and Rhys goes to his knees. Jack brushes a thumb over Rhys' lower lip and Rhys opens his mouth for better access.

 

(Jack smiles at that, small but no less feral than his toothy grins.)

 

“I was easier to deal with as a hologram, wasn't I?” Jack says, in a voice that implies he already knows the answer and doesn't expect Rhys to actually reply. “But now, oh boy. If I said 'jump,' you'd say 'how high,' wouldn't you, Rhysie?”

 

Jack presses his thumb into Rhys' mouth, over his bottom row of teeth, and pulls his mandible down so Rhys sits agape.

 

“Pretty boy, aren't you?” Jack says, not exactly mocking but definitely not kind. "Got a mouth made for fucking."

 

Rhys feels his cheeks color and looks away from Jack's eyes, only to have Jack's free hand snap in his face.

 

“Keep your eyes on me,” Jack says, and Rhys is quick to obey. “Aw, so obedient. Good boy.”

 

Rhys flushes darker, ashamed at the rush of white-hot arousal he feels at Jack's words.

 

“We're gonna have so much fun,” Jack promises.

 

Rhys sucks the tip of Jack's thumb between his lips, and then Jack jerks his hand away and his thumb presses into the pulse he finds below Rhys' jaw.

 

(It's so familiar, like Jack has done this a million times before. Rhys remembers his own hand on his neck, and thinks maybe Jack _has_ done this before. Rhys has always wanted this. His mind is singing, glorious, over the moon. The port at his temple burns, his eyes are bright, his mechanical arm is restraining the other. Rhys can believe in Jack, he can believe that if he goes, Jack goes, and that Jack cares about him more than anyone in any world, system, life. Rhys and Jack are one, inseparable being, inextricably tied together, forever. Rhy wouldn't have it any other way, and he sees that now. The light isn't blinding; the light is what lets him see.)

 

“I trust you,” Rhys says, painfully genuine.

 

Jack smiles. “Oh, kitten,” he says, tightening his hand around Rhys' throat. Rhys' vision starts to tunnel, and all he can focus on is Jack's mismatched eyes, mirrors of his own. “That was your first mistake.”

**Author's Note:**

> ~his boyfriend's back and you're gonna be in trouble~


End file.
